WWF: European Commission proposals “a blunt instrument that could do unnecessary damage to nature & biodiversity”
In the face of major investments by the US to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy and growing dominance by China, the EU is playing catch up on its green technologies industry. However, the Commission’s proposals presented today are a blunt instrument that could do a lot of unnecessary damage along the way, especially to nature and biodiversity.
Today the European Commission launched new proposals, namely the Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA) and Critical Raw Materials Act (CRM), to boost the European Union’s clean technology industries and reduce its dependence on imported raw materials.
WWF supports efforts to boost the European manufacturing of clean technologies in order to accelerate the transition towards climate neutrality. But the European Commission is missing out on big pieces of the puzzle: a green transition will not happen without a strong governance framework, an integrated approach across decarbonisation and innovation, nor without demand-side measures on sufficiency and circularity to reduce the EU’s demand for raw materials.
Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA)
The European Commission proposes a list of sectors that could apply for net-zero industry projects status in order to get faster permitting procedures. Yet the European Commission doesn’t make a distinction between activities that are environmentally harmful and/or unproven at scale (e.g. Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), nuclear power and non-renewable hydrogen) and those that are clean and in need of rapid scaling up, like solar PV, wind power and heat pumps.
What’s more, the European Commission fails to acknowledge material and energy efficiency as a big part of the equation.
Critical Raw Materials (CRM) Act
WWF acknowledges the EU’s need for critical raw materials to ensure the massive deployment of renewables in order to stop runaway climate change and avoid the EU’s dependency on third countries, as with oil and gas. However, the Commission’s proposal misses several critical elements such as the uncertainty on the potential impacts for nature protection laws and mining projects.
Story: WWF
Image: By Traveler100 at English Wikipedia, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2624021
